The Imperialist eBook

“You’ll find,” said John Murchison,
removing his pipe, “that protection’ll
have to come first over there. They’ll
put up a fence and save their trade—­in their
own good time, not next week or next year—­and
when they’ve done that they’ll talk to
us about our big ideas—­not before.
And if Wallingham hadn’t frightened them with
the imperial job, he never would have got them to
take up the other. It’s just his way of
getting both done.”

“I hope you’re right, Father,” said
Lorne, with a covert glance at his watch. “Horace—­Mrs
Williams—­I’ll have to get you to
excuse me. I have an engagement at eight.”

He left them with a happy spring in his step, left
them looking after him, talking of him, with pride
and congratulation. Only Stella, with a severe
lip and a disapproving eye, noted the direction he
took as he left the house.

CHAPTER XVIII

Peter Macfarlane had carried the big Bible up the
pulpit steps of Knox Church, and arranged the glass
of water and the notices to be given out beside it,
twice every Sunday for twenty years. He was a
small spare man, with thin grey hair that fell back
from the narrow dome of his forehead to his coat collar,
decent and severe. He ascended the pulpit exactly
three minutes before the minister did; and the dignity
with which he put one foot before the other made his
appearance a ceremonious feature of the service and
a thing quoted. “I was there before Peter”
was a triumphant evidence of punctuality. Dr
Drummond would have liked to make it a test. It
seemed to him no great thing to expect the people
of Knox Church to be there before Peter.

Macfarlane was also in attendance in the vestry to
help the minister off with his gown and hang it up.
Dr Drummond’s gown needed neither helping nor
hanging; the Doctor was deftness and neatness and
impatience itself, and would have it on the hook with
his own hands, and never a fold crooked. After
Mr Finlay, on the contrary, Peter would have to pick
up and smooth out—­ten to one the garment
would be flung on a chair. Still, he was invariably
standing by to see it flung. and to hand Mr Finlay
his hat and stick. He was surprised and put about
to find himself one Sunday evening too late for this
attendance. The vestry was empty, the gown was
on the floor. Peter gathered it up with as perturbed
an air as if Mr Finlay had omitted a point of church
observance. “I doubt they get into slack
ways in these missions,” said Peter. He
had been unable, with Dr Drummond, to see the necessity
for such extensions.